Linde awarded major supply contract from world’s largest helium source

Trade News

Munich, Germany, 10 May 2010 – Linde Gases, a division of The Linde Group, today announced it has been awarded a significant long-term contract to supply helium from the new Qatar Helium 2 Project, which is due to begin production in early 2013.

With a production capacity of almost 40 million cubic metres per year, the Qatar Helium 2 Project will be the world’s largest helium plant and along with the Qatar Helium 1 plant, will make Qatar the largest exporter of helium globally. The new contract with the Qatar Helium 2 Project owners, when combined with its current off-take from Qatar Helium 1, will make Linde one of the largest buyers of helium from Qatar. The new supply agreement, which covers 30 percent of total helium production output, will significantly enhance Linde’s ability to reliably supply helium to its worldwide customers.

“This is an important supply agreement for Linde,” said Steve Penn, Global Head of Merchant and Packaged Gases, Linde. “It is our second helium agreement for supply from Qatar and, along with our recently opened helium plant in Darwin, Australia and our Algerian joint venture Helison, it confirms our position as the supplier with access to the most diversified helium source portfolio. As global demand for helium increases, Linde’s Qatar supply will allow us to satisfy our customers’ growing helium needs and shield them from potential industry supply constraints.”

Qatar Helium 2 Project will produce liquid helium from the helium-rich stream resulting from expanding the LNG facility. The facility is supplied from Qatar’s North Field in the Arabian Gulf which itself has reserves of more than 25 trillion cubic metres, making it the largest natural gas field in the world and therefore providing a long-term source of helium as a by-product from LNG.

Notes to editors:

Due to helium’s unique properties, it is used extensively in the medical sector and across the manufacturing, space and defence industries, in addition to some consumer applications. As helium is the coldest liquid substance, with a normal boiling point below -268 degrees centigrade, it is important in the operation of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners which use liquid helium to cool the superconducting magnets that generate high resolution images of the human body. Rising demand for MRI along with growth in the electronics, semiconductor, liquid crystal displays and fibre optic industries is fuelling increased requirement for the gas.

About The Linde Group

The Linde Gases Division, part of the Linde Group, is a leader in the international industrial and healthcare gases markets, providing compressed, bulk, specialty and medical gases, as well as chemicals to virtually all fields of industry globally. The company adds value to its customers’ businesses through the provision of state-of-the-art application technology, process know-how, services and equipment.

The Linde Group is a world leading gases and engineering company with almost 48,000 employees working in more than 100 countries worldwide. In the 2009 financial year it achieved sales of EUR 11.2 billion. The strategy of The Linde Group is geared towards sustainable earnings-based growth and focuses on the expansion of its international business with forward-looking products and services.

Linde acts responsibly towards its shareholders, business partners, employees, society and the environment – in every one of its business areas, regions and locations across the globe. Linde is committed to technologies and products that unite the goals of customer value and sustainable development.